Relocation

The next time someone says to me "oh... we just decided it was time to relocate..." I'm going to run a series of checks to assess their sanity. As the sun rises this morning, I am looking around my home for the last 13 years and wondering whether it was such a good idea to decide to relocate. There is mess everywhere. We have been packing for weeks in a sort of casual manner, and then intensely for days. And - there's a lot of stuff left unpacked. The rediculous collection of boxes we put together got used up and the results of our cry for more are also nearly gone. I don't think we've packed any clothes yet, and there is the shed to do and records and toys and... sigh.

What lies ahead for us is (in theory at least) quite an adventure. We are leaving Melbourne and heading north to Brisbane. After years of living in my home state, we are moving to Shelley's home state. A couple of times recently, I have felt really dubious about this, but I also cannot escape the fact that, back in 1989 when we met, Shell and I agreed that we would probably both have to live in each other's state at some time in our lives if we were actually going to have a life together. Ok, so it is my turn...

Which makes me sound kind of negative about it. Which is not true, I just get a bit down about it sometimes. Indeed, this is one of the more exciting things in my life so far - so long as the logistics don't kill me! It's the opportunity for a new job, new extended family (not really new, but you know...), new house, new church, new car. In fact - apart from the wife and kids, there is not much staying the same really! And if that was not enough of its own accord, we've decided that this might be a good moment to buy land and actually build our own house. So - we move into our rental place, and then spend the next 9 months building, then be ready to move again. This has complicated everything. Certain furniture items we know we would not take into the new house are required for the rental place. Or, in other cases - we think they are required but we don't know because we have not seen the rental place at all - we rented it off the Internet. And some boxes of stuff we can happily live without for the next 9 months, so we mark them with red X's, but many more we really don't know and therefore do we mark them off or not? And then there are the things that won't fit into the rental house but are required for the new house - like the spare double bed. I don't know...

And yet, I am convinced that the timing is right, that the opportunity is right, that it is indeed time to move north. I've known that for the last four months since I went for a job interview and received such a positive affirmation. Since then, I have been serving out my notice at the old job - a minimum of three months required but for a smoother transition we elected to extend this to almost four - and have gradually been moving towards relocation. As I am a planner by nature, when I look at this in terms of a "project", it contains a bunch of separate but inter-related things, including;

Selling the house in Melbourne
Buying a house in Brisbane (but it turned out to be land)
Building a new house
Finishing the old job
The actual relocation
Starting the new job

Each of them to date has proven to be more complex and time consuming than I kind of expected. I have decided to use this blog to try to capture some of this - particularly I suppose the building of the new house and starting the new job, as these are the big tasks that stretch ahead. Partially this is for friends back home who want to hear how things are going. Partially it is for people who might be thinking about similar things and after some tips on what to do or not to do to smooth the way. Partially I want a record of this for myself to reflect on. Partially it is a practical example of how God can communicate with people and let them know that He wants them to take on a different thing. And, partially its because I just like telling stories...

The furniture truck arrives in 49 hours. I'd better stop typing and start packing!

More to come!